Works on Paper Fair Gets Off to Confident Start

Damien Hirst Chuck Close Sol LeWitt Andy Warhol Pablo Picasso Robert Longo David Hockney Sebastiao Salgado

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Friend: How’s business?
Dealer: [Pause.] [Laughs.]
Friend: [Laughs.] What business, right?

Such is the way these days. Business is slow, and the art fair, that all-too-ubiquitous event that stands as a reminder of the boom just past, struggles to survive like so many other art-world institutions. Some have been canceled, others suspended — and some keep on, slow business and all. The Works on Paper fair is one of those.

Now in its 21st year, the fair has slimmed down from 78 galleries last year to 46 this year, but has expanded its mission, inviting participants to bring sculpture as a means of supplementing their income. “In order to provide you with the chance to sell as much as possible, we’d like to add an area not covered in any other specialty fair in New York,” wrote Smith in a letter to exhibitors at the end of January.

Still, most exhibitors seemed to stick with what the fair — and its visitors — know best. Aside from a few sculptures dotted around booths (sometimes on the floor in not-exactly eye-catching locations), works on paper were the ticket. And more than that, works on paper by masters: Old and modern masters — Rembrandt, Picasso, and Léger at R.S. Johnson Fine Art; contemporary masters — Warhol, Hockney, Hirst, and Indiana at the booth of Nuremberg’s Galerie Hafenrichter; even outsider masters — Henry Darger, Martín Ramírez, and George Widener at Edlin Gallery. The general, unwritten consensus seemed to be: Bring what people know.

It was too early to tell how well that strategy paying off when ARTINFO visited the fair this afternoon (it kicked off with a benefit preview last night and runs through Monday, March 2). Business was slow, but some people had sales to report. R.S. Johnson, which is based in Chicago and is on the higher end of the fair’s price range, had unloaded two Léger pencil drawings, a watercolor by André Lhote, and an etching by Rembrandt. A representative from the gallery told ARTINFO that they tend to do most of their sales after the show anyway, meeting clients over the course of the weekend and then finalizing purchases later. Most of the transactions already made at this year's edition, she said, had been considered before the fair.

The star of R.S. Johnsons’s booth was an Adam and Eve print by Dürer from 1504, a second of three versions of the work. It was on offer for $400,000.

At Edlin Gallery, a large untitled work by Darger depicting the artist’s famous girls-with-male-genitalia creations, the Vivian girls, had sold for an unspecified and undoubtedly hearty sum. A 2008 Widener piece, Megalopolis 2143: Rare Twins, had also gone, for five-figures. The work is a striking futuristic cityscape drawn in patterned black-and-white detail and surrounded by a colorful border. The gallery was also offering a second Widener for $1,800 and a Ramírez drawing for $72,500.

Andrew Edlin, for his part, mentioned that he was trying to be both “realistic and optimistic,” a sentiment echoed by other dealers. David Lusk, of Memphis, had sold a large, abstract encaustic on paper by Atlanta-based artist Rana Rochat for $5,000. He said that he was “working” the rest of her pieces and characterized himself as “cautiously optimistic.” Lusk also told ARTINFO that he had buyers coming back for two paintings with figures sewn on by Tim Crowders, priced at $3,000 each. In one, God Be Merciful, the silhouette of a rabbit is stitched into a painted sky, beaming rays down upon a house.

The New York–based Mark J. Weinbaum, who deals in fine posters and prints, seemed generally upbeat and hopeful, saying that he seldom sells on opening night, so he wasn’t too worried yet. To this reporter, he seemed to have reason to feel that way, with a booth packed with fun, colorful, vintage poster art. Weinbaum was offering a range of things, from a classic Folies-Bergére poster priced at $12,500 to a roughly 10-by-5-foot poster made by Italian artist Luciano Achille Mauzan for Crosley Radio circa 1930. The three-panel piece on linen took up an entire wall of Weinbaum’s booth and stole the show in his corner of the fair. It is the very portrait of its time, with energetic pictures of a flapper, two jazz saxophonists, a white-faced opera singer, and several more characters, who seem to coalesce into a chaotic unison. The poster last sold 12 years ago at auction for a hair under $21,000 and hasn’t been on the market since. Weinbaum had it priced at $27,500.

Also feeling hopeful was New York dealer Cynthia Reeves, who had on offer some of the most standout contemporary works by lesser-known artists at the fair. She was showing an installation, Time Lapse (2006), by Shuli Sadé, a series of stills derived from video that Sadé shot while riding across a bridge in New York. The sepia-toned images were placed in rows, and together they captured the feeling of the relentless pace of the city. The installation comes in an edition of 6, priced at $30,000.

Reeves mentioned that she was happy with the “focused level of attention” that the recession seems to have brought to fairs and collectors. “It engenders an opportunity for people to really engage with the artwork,” she said. Reeves had already arranged a number of commissions, including one for Sadé, with visitors to the fair.

Another dealer waxing about the potentially positive effects of the recession, Hal Katzen, told ARTINFO that “good things are always going to have a strong value.” According to him, “There’s been a clearing-out process of over-hyper, over-sold art.” The New York dealer was showing a number of mid-sized works by big-name contemporary artists: LeWitt, Frankenthaler, Robert Longo. Also in his booth were a Chuck Close self-portrait (one of two at the fair) and a seemingly Futurist-inspired James Rosenquist lithograph titled Stars and Stripes at the Speed of Light (2004) priced at $6,800. Despite the lack of red dots around these works, Katzen said that sales had been “ok” and mentioned that there had been a lot of interest and a lot of good questions. “People are weighing their options,” he said.

Peter Fetterman Gallery from Santa Monica, the only photography dealer at the fair, reported measured success. A representative said that they had sold pieces by Sebastião Salgado, gallery newcomer Jeffrey Conley, and Lillian Bassman, all in the $2,500–10,000 range. Fetterman had a whole wall devoted to Bassman, a fashion photographer who shot for Harper’s Bazaar from the 1940s through the ’60s and was a peer of Richard Avedon — she was “a woman in a man’s world,” according to the representative. Now 93, Bassman is enjoying a sort of renaissance; her striking and almost lush black-and-white shots were on offer from the gallery for between $4,000 and $8,500.

Despite slow sales, the Works on Paper fair had an air of confidence and seemed to know its standing and its purpose well enough to be on solid footing. But as with all things market-related, only time will tell. The only way to weather the storm, according to veteran dealer Katzen, who said he has been through similar downturns “a few times now,” is to return to the root of it all.

“Dealers have to go back to the basis of what they do,” he said. “The art.”